At first, let me thank you for leading our home state Assam and making it glorious and prosperous. Also I thank you because in various occasions you have shown your eagerness and earnest desire to visit the US to meet the Assamese people living abroad so that they can participate in the development of Assam. In last few years’ Assamese people have come to US in groups and established themselves in prominent positions. However, compared to the other states of India, the number of Assamese people coming to US is very small. At the same token, we have to give credit to people of other states because they have discovered US much before than we did. When they started their own big companies to compete with their US counterparts, we were soliciting employment in those companies. However, you will be happy to know that today many Assamese entrepreneurs established their own companies and doing an admirable job. Sometimes I go to meetings organized by other Indian communities. Whether it is cultural or religious get together, whoever speaking as President or Chief Guest in those gettogethers the starting line of their speech invariably start with “We are a great Indian community starting from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari in the north south direction and Gujarat to Bengal in east west direction.” Are we missing something in this statement? Are there not seven other states beyond Bengal? I think, it is mainly due to their ignorance about geographical boundaries of the Indian continent. At the same time we should blame ourselves for not raising our voice for this injustice imposed by other Indian communities. My appeal to you that it is time, we should work hard to put our name in the Indian Map once and for all. As Chief Minster of the State, you have to carry most the burden to fulfill this objective. We need to do our homework selectively and show that this work has the nation’s attention. The following paragraphs describe a few things that we can do effectively to give a movement to achieve that goal.
What I feel, first and foremost, we need a strong presence of the Assamese Community in the US. There are various avenues in the US that we should exploit to achieve this goal. The key to survival in the US is to get a job. Currently, various news and media groups giving a very bleak picture about the US job market. However, if someone critically analyzes the job market, it is vivid that there are at least few areas in which jobs are plentiful. These areas are Information Technology, Hospital Nurse Assistance and Physical Therapy, Biotechnology, Bio-Engineering, etc.
Information Technology (IT) and Biotechnology has lots of future and growth. Many feel that currently, IT has reached its peak and do not see any further growth. However, many trade magazine and other news media are debating and think that it is still in its formative years. Nobody can predict the future but many agree that IT is here for the long run. Assamese people have a fare share of these job opportunities and many intelligent individuals established themselves in a very strong position. However, relative to other states of India, Assam’s share of this pie is very minimal. My feeling is that a state sponsored program in IT will not go waste.
The current statistics shows that about forty percent of the American work force will be retiring by 2010. There is a term widely used as Baby Boomers retiring in 2010. There is prediction that this event will create lots of job opportunities for the Hospital Nursing Assistant and Physical Therapist. The US Commence Department and Labor Department statistics shows that there will be one million Nurse Assistants and one million Physical Therapists will be required by 2010. The local graduates from US in this field will probably fill only about 40% of those jobs. To meet this demand US have to get people from out side the country.
The other Indian States and countries like the Philippines and Indonesia have already started gearing up to take a large share of these job opportunities. We have seen Nurses from southern states of India already working in various hospitals in US.
It is high time we should equip ourselves if we are interested to have a large share of these job opportunities. With a proper training program in place, this can be easily achieved. The kind of jobs I have illustrated may go against the grain of jobs what Assamese people are aware of. Because we are so use to jobs like doctors, engineers, computer scientist etc., but trends are changing and what is becoming important for many is how much we earn rather then what we do. National statistics about average salary earned by different professions put Nursing and Physical Therapist salary way above than many other professions.
The basic requirements to fulfill the criteria are to go through standard curriculum as it is taught in US. At the same time, the candidates need to have fluency in English and speak English in an American way. We have full confidence that Assamese men and women are brilliant enough to grasp these training programs very easily. We also have full confidence that, by discussion with your colleagues, you can establish training centers, so that graduates from those centers can directly compete for jobs here in US.
It is in the Assam’s news media that you are eager to come to US and meet and discuss business deals with Assamese people here so that Assamese people has some investment in Assam. My appeal to you that besides meeting Assamese entrepreneurs please widen your horizon and try to meet groups of Indian communities and make them excited to set up industries and establish training facilities in Assam. Ideal time to visit and meet people is during Indian Independence day (15th August) or Indian Republic day (26th January). These are the dates when you can take advantage of large gathering of Indian people.
Thanks for reading this letter.
By Dr. Mantu C Baishya, Nebraska
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